Ninja has some harsh words about Fortnite ‘rehab’ and parental responsibility

Earlier this week, Bloomberg published an article titled ‘Fortnite addiction is forcing kids into video-game rehab.’ Prolific Fortnite streamer Ninja has a problem with that – and it’s not the hyphen in videogames. Ninja suggests that title should read ‘terrible parents don’t know how to take their kids gaming system away.’

Exactly what form this rehab takes is never specified, but the report will seem pretty familiar if you’ve read a mainstream news story on the dangers of gaming before. There are a number of anecdotes from parents about missing sleep and dipping grades, comparisons to drug addiction, mentions of Grand Theft Auto, and at least one use of the word ‘menace.’ Not to make light of the very real problems of addiction, but it at all seems a bit silly coming back around again.

In addition to the article itself, Bloomberg published social video covering the story, and that’s where Ninja responded on Twitter. The streamer’s flippant response naturally picked up a whole lot more social media currency than the original post, which amusingly led to Bloomberg following up with a post on parental control tools on PCs and game consoles.

Fortnite addiction isn’t a fundamentally different beast than most previous videogame scares, but hey – kids over indulging in game is a real problem that parents should address. A quote like “this game is like heroin” may not exactly be helping matters, though.

Title should be "Terrible parents don't know how to take their kids gaming system away"

The lesson here is clear, regardless. Parents, take your kids’ games away. Kids, sneak behind your parents’ backs to rack up hours upon hours in Fortnite. The Fortnite season 7 release date is coming up fast, and you don’t want to miss out on any of those battle pass items. This way, everyone can be happy.